A call for a universal CV Format

I am not often applying for a jobs, but sometimes I do. Because I am interested to do something new, the company seems nice or just to test the waters a bit. It mostly not that serious, but I don't like to be caught unprepared if one day disaster strikes.

In the old days I had to send hand written letters, which created an additional difficulty because I have never been a fast and beautiful writer. We had of course type writers, but for some strange reason you were not allowed to use that for the introduction letters. CV's could be made with a type writer and the art therein lied in avoiding the use of tippex. A chalky white sticky substance that could make you blot out your typing errors. However, it left some traces and a copy of the CV was therefore often better than the original.

Happily the PC made it's entrance to our society. Wordperfect and Word entered our lives. Typing errors were dealt with by using DELETE or BACKSPACE and the art of CV making was forever changed.

With rise of the internet and social networks another feature was introduced. Profiles. With a profile on linkedin you have a standard CV that the majority of the globe accepts. But don't you dare to apply on a company website!! Suddenly your CV is worth nothing. You find yourself in a great big internet form wizard where you have to type all the info that you entered when you were making your CV! You know of course that in the past a human resource assistant entered such things into the database, but we don't want to pay her anymore so it is up to you, the applicant, to enter and reenter your data over and over again. When I do that I am getting pissed. I feel like I am in the stone age of hand written letters again. I understand that companies want a nice easy standard overview of the applicants, but I don't see the use of wasting my time copy and pasting my data. So I am calling for the development of universal CV format. Export your linkedin CV to XML. Import XML data in your prospect employers database and hoppa! Everybody happy! It could be so easy! I can't think of any good reason why it is the way it is now. So how about it? Is there hope for the future?